Louisiana Anthology

Bernie Sanders.
Eddie Jenkins.
Kate Leighton.
Mike Ashworth.
Gary Chambers.
“Fighting Oligarchy.”

Mentally ill in our state, and also for children with serious emotional or behavior problems. In our state, for every $3 that Louisiana puts up, Medicaid gives us $7. So you can see, if Medicaid funds are cut, our service system is slashed.

Louisiana has experienced drastic cuts to the mental health system before. In 2012, the Bobby Jindal administration decimated our system, and we have not recovered from that yet. We are now facing the same threat of cuts to Medicaid. In fact, they’ve already begun in Louisiana. Two months ago, a $55 million grant for crisis services throughout Louisiana was terminated early, for the purpose of saving $55 million at the expense of crisis services.

Do we really want crisis mental health services cut? Looming ahead is the threat of additional cuts to mental health funded by Medicaid via the so-called big, beautiful bill. You’re going to hear two misleading statements. One, only waste and fraud will be cut. And two, able-bodied recipients of Medicaid will be forced to work.

Here are the facts. In Louisiana, 69% of the individuals on Medicaid do work. That’s the highest rate in the nation. Twenty-four percent of Louisiana residents on Medicaid are disabled and can’t work. That leaves 7%. Who are they? This group is made up of retired individuals, caregivers, or individuals who are looking for work.

Now, know this: 50% of the people who are on Medicaid come from rural Louisiana. We all know that jobs are very scarce in rural Louisiana. It’s a myth to think that there’s an abundance of able-bodied people receiving Medicaid who are lazy and unwilling to work.

What about rooting out fraud? And this is my last point. The Louisiana Attorney General’s Office, which our current governor led before he became our governor, has a nationally recognized Medicaid fraud unit that has been ranked number one in the nation numerous times. Fraud in Louisiana is being effectively dealt with and addressed without cuts.

If the reason for reducing Medicaid funds to Louisiana is to reduce fraud, that stated reason is a solution to a problem that does not exist in Louisiana. Instead of even thinking about cutting services to those with mental illness, we need to make it a national priority to increase services to the mentally ill. This is a very vulnerable population.

The next speaker is Kate Leighton. She is, like many of us here, a constituent of Mike Johnson. [Applause]

Like he said, my name is Kate Leighton. I am nobody particularly important. I am a middle‑aged housewife. And my most outstanding, uh, thing about me is the fact that I have six children. They are aged 21 years old to 9 years old.

So, I asked myself why they wanted me to talk today. And apparently, it’s because this administration has screwed my family over in so many ways that I would be pertinent to everybody here today. So, let me begin.

My husband, William — yes, we are the original William and Kate, not to be confused with those Englishers. Never mind. Um, my husband has a master’s degree in homeland security and a certification in computer forensics. After the election last year, he was told by his employer that they were not going to be opening any new contracts. His contract ended on December 16th. His employment ended on December 16th.

We have six children. Five of them have ADHD, three are LGBTQ, two have autism, and a partridge in a pear tree. So, we of course needed to get on Medicaid. We tried to do it online, but apparently that was the same week that cuts were announced, so the site crashed.

So, we had to physically go into the office, which we did. We were told not to bother them for 45 days because they had to get back to us by 45 days. Forty-five days came and went. So, we walked — we walked down there. We didn’t call. We physically went, and they said, “Oops, we put your papers in the wrong stack, so we have to start you over again.”

Now, I don’t know if anybody knows this, but ADHD drugs are astronomically expensive. We’re talking $300 a month per child. Luckily, school’s over, so my kids are taking a medication vacation for the summer while my husband tries to get a job, which he has been unable to do.

So, I also have LGBTQ children. I have a transgender daughter who has told me that if her voice changes, she would rather unalive herself than speak in a deeper voice. Yeah.

So, we set up ourselves in, uh, in Colorado. We — I had everything set: someone to stay with, appointments set up. And two weeks ago, they called us to let us know that Colorado is no longer accepting out-of-state patients. So, I’m not going to say what state we’re working on now because I don’t want to jinx it.

So, um, sorry about all those. So, let’s see what else has this place screwed us over on. Oh, my transgender daughter would like to be an ER doctor. She’s very smart, good grades, but we have six kids, so we can’t pay for medical school. So her plan was to join the Army and get the college. Yeah, exactly. You all got it.

So, um, I will say I have children in behavioral therapy, I have them in speech therapy, and I have them in therapy-therapy because it’s just necessary. Uh, some days it’s really hard to get out of bed, and I fear a lot for my children’s health. I fear for my children’s safety. I worry about my family because we should have lost our home by now.

The only bright shining thing in our world right now is the fact that people like to hit me with their cars and I have a good lawyer. [Applause] Thank you, Thomas Wilson. Sorry.

It is hard to keep going, but I have six reasons to get out of bed every day and keep fighting. I want these people to get some empathy. Show us some compassion. There are families all over this country. Everyone has their problems. Everyone has their unique issues that need to be dealt with.

And we need to make sure that this administration knows that there’s a lot more of us than there are of them. So, oh, just as an aside, I have MS. That’s why I have the cane. Um, so I’m going to end with that. And, uh, next we’re going to introduce Mr. Mike Ashworth. Thank you.

Hi, I’m Mike Ashworth. I’m supposed to talk here from a father perspective. I got two kids, and one is still on Medicaid because thankfully she had a special medical waiver, which of course we know the GOP would get rid of in a heartbeat, which they’re trying to.

So with my daughter, she has a genetic condition that’s caused growth issues, heart issues. She is in ICU for weeks at a time. First few years of her life she’s had, um, ENT, audiologist, intro— ophthalmologist, cardiologist, all these different appointments, and we know that costs a lot of money.

She has these appointments yearly. She also has physical therapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy. And then she has to do that weekly, three times a week. And I work a full-time job. And, uh, you know, we have private insurance like many of us do. And we can’t afford to pay this without Medicaid.

Half of our cost is paid by Medicaid. And we would be broke. We would be, um, out of money like so many other people if we didn’t have it. Um, yeah, we’d be swimming in medical debt if we didn’t have Medicaid for her. And that’s a reality so many people in this state are dealing with.

Sorry. Yep. Yep. Something. Um, we got to ask ourselves, uh, really look at what these politicians are trying to do to our country, to our state, and how many people are going to suffer. And saying hundreds of people will die due to these cuts. Thousands of people go bankrupt, thousands of people lose their health care, their well‑being, their way to take care of themselves.

Let’s think about, you know, what is wrong with our taxes going to Medicaid for all, or some kind of health care where we all get help. Our taxes going to help us, the American people. Now, all of y’all keep on standing, keep on rising, get to the polls. Let’s tell them we do not stand for this.

But that was — sorry. And that was good. Sorry about that. Dang. All right. But y’all keep on doing that. We got to get out there. Tell them keep on on the no kings and everything else.

Now, a person with that it doesn’t need to be introduced. Uh, um — Gary Chambers.

Good afternoon, board. It is my pleasure to be with you today, and I want to let you know that the South has something to say. [Applause] It has always been the people that have led us forward in this nation. And as we gather this weekend on Juneteenth weekend, understanding the history of this nation, let us never forget that justice has always been forced in this nation by the will of the people.

Now, I think it is important that Senator Sanders came to North Louisiana because Mike Johnson, one of the most powerful people in America right now, comes from the 50th-ranked state. Fifty. Now, now for the Democratic Party, as long as you ignore us, you going to keep getting hell like Mike from us.

Without investment, you the people elected John Bel in this state twice because people in this state got common sense even when some of our leaders do not.

Now, Mike has a version of Christianity that I don’t really subscribe to. Now, I think it’s important — I think it’s important to start there because many of you, when I ran for the Senate, put a yard sign of mine in your front yard, and the slogan said, “Do good, seek justice.” Now, most of you may not know, but that’s a scripture. Isaiah 1:17: “Do good, seek justice. Help the widow, the orphan, and the oppressed.”

Now, I don’t think Mike got that part of the text when he was reading the Bible because it’s not like God to snatch children from their parents. It is not like God for us to have immigrants who farm our land being stripped from the field while they work to produce the food for our communities. It is not like God that in the richest country on earth people are struggling for health care that they desire to cut. It is not like God that as we live in the 50th-ranked state with one of the most struggling economies in the country that he will cut SNAP benefits from people trying to feed their children.

The reason I came up here today was because when I ran, I borrowed a little bit from the senator. Okay. Medicare for All. I’m a man of faith. I told you what the scriptures were. Medicare for All. When Jesus laid hands on the sick, that sound like Medicare for all.

Now, a person with that it doesn’t need to be introduced. Uh, um — Gary Chambers.

Good afternoon, board. It is my pleasure to be with you today, and I want to let you know that the South has something to say. [Applause] It has always been the people that have led us forward in this nation. And as we gather this weekend on Juneteenth weekend, understanding the history of this nation, let us never forget that justice has always been forced in this nation by the will of the people.

Now, I think it is important that Senator Sanders came to North Louisiana because Mike Johnson, one of the most powerful people in America right now, comes from the 50th-ranked state. Fifty. Now, now for the Democratic Party, as long as you ignore us, you going to keep getting hell like Mike from us.

Without investment, you the people elected John Bel in this state twice because people in this state got common sense even when some of our leaders do not.

Now, Mike has a version of Christianity that I don’t really subscribe to. Now, I think it’s important — I think it’s important to start there because many of you, when I ran for the Senate, put a yard sign of mine in your front yard, and the slogan said, “Do good, seek justice.” Now, most of you may not know, but that’s a scripture. Isaiah 1:17: “Do good, seek justice. Help the widow, the orphan, and the oppressed.”

Now, I don’t think Mike got that part of the text when he was reading the Bible because it’s not like God to snatch children from their parents. It is not like God for us to have immigrants who farm our land being stripped from the field while they work to produce the food for our communities. It is not like God that in the richest country on earth people are struggling for health care that they desire to cut. It is not like God that as we live in the 50th-ranked state with one of the most struggling economies in the country that he will cut SNAP benefits from people trying to feed their children.

The reason I came up here today was because when I ran, I borrowed a little bit from the senator. Okay. Medicare for All. I’m a man of faith. I told you what the scriptures were. Medicare for All. When Jesus laid hands on the sick, that sound like Medicare for All to me, don’t it? Cuz everyone he touched recovered.

Now, if it was good for the Texans, got to be good for us. And what I don’t understand is how we the people can be silent. What you need to understand when I say do good and seek justice: we the people have done good in this state. We did good when we put John Bel in twice, but we slipped. We slipped a little bit when we let Jeff get in.

Because sometimes some of us, when we hear somebody say a couple of good words with scripture, we think that that means that they go to the same church we do, that they reading out the same text we reading out of. And the reality is they are not. And as long as they are not, and we are allowing people to persuade us by foolishness rather than to justify us by policy, we will continue to be in this position.

I came up here because Senator Sanders has been a man for over 40 years holding on to the same truth. For over 40 years telling us that we needed to be a more just and moral nation. For over 40 years telling us that we needed to give health care to all of the people of this country.

Now, while Mike believes that we ought to have bombs in the Middle East, Bernie believes that we ought to have bridges, books, and Black maternal health for the people of this country.

So, it is my honor and my pleasure to introduce to you today the senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders.

[Applause] [Cheers]

Oh — [Music] [Applause] Thank you, Shreveport.

Let me — let me thank all of you for coming out. Let me thank Sweet Crude for the music. Conrad Cable, Avette Fuller, Eddie Jenkins, Kate Letor, Mike Ashforth, and Gary Chambers for their remarks, and let me also thank uh your local Congressman Mike Johnson for welcoming me to Shreport. I saw a a post of the uh billboard that uh the speaker put up on I-20. No, yeah, I agree the photo was not good no question we got to send Mike a better photo. Uh, but in truth he did note what I am going to talk about today and that is this absolutely horrific piece of legislation that Johnson is pushing in Congress.

And I want to say a word about why I am in Louisiana today, why I was in Macallen Texas last night, why we’re going to be in Tulsa Oklahoma this evening, why we’re going back to Texas tomorrow, and the reason is I do not believe in this red-state blue-state nonsense.I believe that whether you live in Louisiana or Texas or Vermont or Massachusetts, I believe that the vast majority of the American people believe in economic justice.They believe in social justice. They understand that climate change is real and a threat to humanity.They believe in racial justice and an end to bigotry in all of its forms,so our job, whether we come from a conservative state or a progressive state, is to bring our people together and not to let people divide us up.

Now I’m going to talk about Mr. Johnson’s bill, but before I do that, I want to say a few words about where I see us as a nation today. And in that regard, I see both bad news and good news. And the bad news is I think most Americans understand is that as a nation today we face more serious crisis than at any time in the modern history of our nation. And I wish I could tell you that wasn’t the case but it is the case. That’s the bad news. The good news is that all over America people are standing up, and your presence here today is part of that standing up and fighting back.

Our Fighting Oligarchy Tour, which has now done 20 events in 14 states, has brought out brought out over 260,000 Americans. And those are Democrats, Republicans, and independents coming together. And just last weekend on Saturday, there were No King Rallies. You all know the No King Rallies — you had one here in Shreport, I understand — well we had about 40 of them all over the state of Vermont, and what people are saying loudly and clearly is, “No,” to oligarchy. “No,” to a government of the billionaire class. “No,” to authoritarianism and a President a President who clearly has not read or understood what the Constitution of the United States is about. “No,” to kleptocracy and a President who’s going to make hundreds of millions of dollars off of his role as President. And “No,” to Speaker Johnson’s bill, which gives massive tax breaks to billionaires.

Our Fighting Oligarchy Tour, which has now done 20 events in 14 states, has brought out brought out over 260,000 Americans. And those are Democrats, Republicans, and independents coming together. And just last weekend on Saturday, there were No King Rallies. You all know the No King Rallies — you had one here in Shreport, I understand — well we had about 40 of them all over the state of Vermont, and what people are saying loudly and clearly is,

“No,” to oligarchy.

“No,” to a government of the billionaire class.

“No,” to authoritarianism and a President, a President who clearly has not read or understood what the Constitution of the United States is about.

“No,” to kleptocracy and a President who’s going to make hundreds of millions of dollars off of his role as President.

And “No,” to Speaker Johnson’s bill, which gives massive tax breaks to billionaires.

So let me spend a moment talking about stuff that you don’t see much about on TV or read about in the papers or hear much about in Congress. And that is that right now, in an unprecedented way, we as Americans are living in an oligarchic form of society. And what that means is that right now — no one disputes this — we have more income and wealth inequality in America today than we have ever had in the history of this country.

You have one person — I mean, let me tell you how absurd it is. And you don’t hear it discussed in Congress much. Some of us do, but not many. You don’t hear it discussed on the media. You got one guy, one person, Mr. Musk — you heard of Mr. Musk — this guy, one person, owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households. You got that. There is nobody in this country who thinks that that is appropriate. You got in America today the top 1% owning more wealth than the bottom 93%.

You have the CEOs of large corporations now making 350 times more than their average worker. But it is not — when we talk about the economy — it’s not just income and wealth inequality. It is a nation in which we have more concentration of ownership than we have ever had in our history. No matter what the sector may be, whether it’s agriculture, transportation, financial services, healthcare, big tech, media, what you have is fewer and fewer very large corporations controlling what is produced and the prices we pay when we go into a grocery store or wherever.

So you have more concentration of ownership than ever before. And you add all of that together — huge corporate profits, rich getting richer — what we have now is a society of, in a sense, two nations. In one sense you have the people on top doing phenomenally well, never have done better. But there is another reality, and that is that while the richest people are doing phenomenally well, working class people are struggling to put food on the table, struggling to pay their health care bills, and struggling to find affordable housing.

But when you talk about the economy, I want — and you talk about wealth in this country — I want everybody to understand, again, a very important point that is almost never discussed. It’s not just that the rich have enormous economic power — they do, unprecedented — they have enormous political power. So let me be as clear as I can be. We are living now under a corrupt campaign finance system. Fifteen years ago or so, the Supreme Court, in a disastrous decision called Citizens United, essentially said that billionaires can spend as much money as they want to buy and sell politicians. And that is exactly what is going on today.

if you want to know how come Elon Musk became the most powerful man in government running all over throwing thousands of federal workers out on the street running to dismantle the Social Security Administration proposing to throw 83,000 employees of the Veterans Administration out on the street i will tell you how Elon Musk got that job he contributed $270,000,000 to get Trump elected that is obscene

If you want to know how come Elon Musk became the most powerful man in government, running all over, throwing thousands of federal workers out on the street, running to dismantle the Social Security Administration, proposing to throw 83,000 employees of the Veterans Administration out on the street, I will tell you how Elon Musk got that job. He contributed $270,000,000 to get Trump elected. That is obscene.

And I’ll tell you something else. That right now, as we debate — and the Johnson bill is coming to the Senate literally in a few days — and as we debate that bill, if you think there is a member of the House of Representatives, a Republican member, who is prepared to stand up against this bill without knowing that if this guy stands up and he says, “You know what, I represent the lowincome district. I don’t think cutting Medicaid is a good idea to give tax breaks to the rich,” you know what happens to that guy on the next day? Mr. Musk says, “We are going to primary you. You are out of here. I own the system. You cannot defy what we want.”

That’s the Republicans. And the Democrats also have billionaires controlling what goes on in that party, so it’s not just Republicans. And I will give you an example, and some of you will agree with me, and that’s fine. I happen to be a believer in democracy. I think that’s a pretty good idea. And unlike Republican leadership, I don’t think everybody has to agree with everything I say.

But I’ll give you an example of something I feel very strongly about. I brought forth several what’s called joint resolutions of disapproval, and what those are — and what I was trying to do was to end U.S. military aid to the Netanyahu government in Israel. [Applause] And the reason — and the reason I did that is that right now what’s going on in Gaza is unspeakable, and children, children are starving, people are being shot in cold blood. My point here, my point is, my point is on that resolution calling for cessation of military aid to Netanyahu’s government, I got 15 votes — 15.

Now why did I get 15 votes? Do you think it’s because other Democrats and Republicans are not concerned and not understanding of what’s going on there? They do. They are afraid, afraid of super PACs like AIPAC and other PACs, and understand that if they stand up, they’re going to get primaries. I’ll give you another example, and again, I don’t know how people in this room feel. I think it would be a disaster for the United States to get involved right now with Israel in a war against Iran.

And I remember, I remember, I remember all of the political rhetoric that was going on regarding the need to get us into the war in Iraq. Oh, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — terrible, terrible. It turned out we got involved in that terrible war. And I went to too many funerals in Vermont, which I’ll never forget. Young people, young people died in that war all over the country. We lost 40 — approximately 4,500 young men, women; 32,000 were wounded.

Now it seems to me that God only knows that we have enough problems right here in the United States to address. We don’t need to spend billions more getting involved in a war in Iran. But I raised those points not just to talk about Gaza or Iran, but to talk about the power of money in our political process.

And that is why the most important political issue that we must deal with as a nation is getting rid of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. [Applause] And moving to public funding of elections. In other words, you want to run for office — and I hope some of you will — you should not have to beg rich people for campaign contributions.

Today, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, there is a reality going on that again gets very little discussion, and that has to do with who owns the media, etc. But what’s going on is that 60% — 60% — of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. You all know what that means, living paycheck to paycheck. Yeah, I, I, I fear that many of you do. And I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck, and that is a life and a childhood that I will never forget and that has greatly impacted my political views.

And what paycheck to paycheck means, as you know, is there are people waking up today worrying about how they’re going to feed their kids. They’re worrying about what happens if the landlord raises rent — how am I going to pay for that? They worry about somebody in the family gets sick — I can’t afford to take the kid, my parent, to the doctor, we just don’t have the money. Talk about, you know, what happens if my car breaks down — I can’t get to work, right? A $1,000 bill to get my car repaired. If I can’t get it repaired, I can’t get to work. If I can’t get to work, I’ll get fired. What happens to my family? That’s what living paycheck to paycheck is about. And we don’t talk about that much in America.

And I was recently talking to some Europeans, and I asked them about that. They had no clue how many people in this country are struggling every day just to survive. So what we have got to understand is that we need in this country an agenda that works for working families, not just the billionaire class. And I’ll tell you why.

Today in America — and I want you to hear this again because it is not talked about much, remember, richest country in the history of the world — half of older workers in America have nothing in the bank as they face retirement. Got that? 22% of seniors are trying to live now on $15,000 a year or less. Anybody here know how somebody can survive on $15,000 a year? You can’t. I don’t care where you live.

Eighty-five million Americans in the richest country on earth are either uninsured or underinsured. We have, as a nation, the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any nation on earth. We got 800,000 Americans who are homeless and over 20 million households that are spending 50% or more of their incomes on housing. You got millions of kids who can’t afford to go to college, and you got a child care system which is broken at a time when in many cases both mom and dad are working.

And then on top of all of that, there’s another reality, and I think it tells you why people in America are angry. All of you know and understand that over the last 50 years — 50 years — technology has exploded, and there has been a huge increase in worker productivity, right? Every worker in this room now produces a lot more than somebody doing similar work 50 years ago. One might expect that, given the reality that workers today are far more productive, producing a lot more than used to be the case, they must be making a lot more money than the men and women who did those jobs 50 years ago, right? Well, here’s the fact. The fact is that in inflation-accounted-for weekly wages, they are lower today than they were 52 years ago.

[Music]

So people are sitting there, they’re saying, “We’re working, I’m producing more, I’m going nowhere in a hurry, and everything being equal, if we don’t change it, our kids in Vermont, in Louisiana, are going to have a lower standard of living than we do.” All of this taking place in the richest country in the history of the world.

And during — and it’s important to know this — during that same 50-year period, there was a $79 trillion transfer of wealth that went from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. So what you got, you got a society which, if you add it all together, is phenomenally rich, but the people on top have virtually all of it, and they are getting richer and richer while working-class people struggle.

This will shock some of the younger people here, all right, but you got to believe me, this is true. Hard to believe, when I was a kid several hundred years ago and I grew up in a working-class family, in those days one person in a home — in those days mostly the man — could earn enough money to pay the bills for the family. Got it? One person. How many working-class families do you know where both mom and dad are not working? Not many, correct? All right, that’s the reality.

And now let me get — now let me get to Mr. Johnson’s bill, because at a time when so many of our people cannot afford health care, when families are struggling to put food on the table, we have kids in Louisiana and Vermont who are hungry, kids can’t afford to go to college. Mr. Johnson’s bill does virtually everything wrong.

But let me say a word about what the bill is not about. Mr. Johnson, in his billboard, said that people like me want to raise taxes on working-class families, and that is absolutely untrue. Nobody in Congress, nobody, believes that we should not reauthorize the tax provisions that protect working-class families. That’s a bogus issue.

But let me tell you what this bill does do. This bill, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the billionaires have never had it so good, would provide a $650 billion tax break to the top 1%. So all of the billionaires in this room — and I know there are many — good times are coming for you. You’re getting a big tax break.

This bill would also — which I find just unbelievable — provide a $230 billion tax break to the top 2/10 of 1% — sorry, 1%, 2/10 — by expanding, in the estate tax, the exemptions for very, very rich families.

This legislation that Mr. Johnson is pushing would provide a tax break of more than $400 billion to large corporations. And, by the way, one of the things this tax break does is it incentivizes these companies to make investment in new technology, i.e., robotics and artificial intelligence, which are going to throw you out on the street.

[Music]

And how are they going to pay for all of these tax breaks for the rich and large corporations? Well, I will tell you. Johnson’s legislation cuts Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by over $1 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan institution, has estimated that at a moment when 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, this bill would end health insurance for 16 million more Americans.

So, in other words, instead of dealing with the health care crisis, making sure that all of our people have health insurance, lowering the cost, this makes a terrible situation even worse. This bill, for the first time, forces millions of Medicaid recipients who make as little as $16,000 a year to pay a co-payment of $35 every time they visit a doctor when they get sick.

And there are people who have studied the implications of what all this means. What does it mean? You throw 16 million people off of the health care they have, you impose a $35 co-payment. Well, Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania did a study on this, and it is really quite shocking. They estimated that if this reconciliation bill is enacted, over 50,000 Americans will die unnecessarily each and every year.

And it is not hard to understand why. If people don’t have access to health care, low-income working-class people, if they can’t get to a doctor when they need to, they will suffer, and tens of thousands will die.

But I also want to tell you that when you’re talking about Medicaid cuts, it impacts more than the 16 million individuals. Nursing homes are largely dependent on Medicaid. Community health centers, largely dependent on Medicaid. Hospitals, largely dependent on Medicaid. Rural hospitals, which are shutting down all over the place, will be devastated by this terrible piece of legislation.

But don’t take my word for it. The Republican president of the state senate right here in Louisiana recently said that if this reconciliation bill is signed into law, the state legislature would have to immediately go into a special session because this state could not afford the massive cuts to Louisiana’s hospitals, health care systems, and state budget. That is the Republican president of the Louisiana State Senate, but it is not in this legislation just our health care system that would be devastated.

This bill would cut $290 billion from nutrition programs. Now, we got hungry kids in Vermont, you got hungry kids in Louisiana dependent on school breakfast programs, school lunch programs. You got programs like Meals on Wheels, which do a phenomenal job in Vermont and, I expect, here as well, right? All over the country. But you’re going to see nutrition programs cut for kids, for elderly people, so that billionaires can get a huge tax break. Tax break.

This bill would slash education funding by $350 billion. All over this country many kids, working-class kids, want a higher education. They want to go to college, they want to go to a trade school. This bill would make it much, much harder to do that.

A few weeks ago, Speaker Johnson said that there was a, quote unquote, “moral component” to this reconciliation bill. Now, I don’t know that there is any religion on earth that believes it’s appropriate to take food away from hungry kids to give tax breaks to the richest people. I don’t know that there is any religion on earth that says you take away health care from people who desperately need it.

In my view, as a nation it is imperative that not just we beat this bill — and I’m going to work as hard as I can next week and in the coming weeks [Laughter] — but it is equally important that we develop and fight for a new vision of what America could be.

See, what the establishment wants to tell you in so many words is, you know, well, I’m sorry about it, you know, we’re a poor country, we’re a struggling country. Sorry I have to throw you off health care. Sorry I have to deny food for your kids. Sorry we can’t do anything about the housing crisis that exists all over the — we just don’t have the money to do it.

And we have got to respond by saying, sorry, this is the richest country in the history of the world. There is nothing that we cannot accomplish, in my view. And as part of the fight against income and wealth inequality, we should not be supporting tax breaks for the rich. We should be demanding that the billionaires start paying their fair share of taxes.

[Applause]

Brothers and sisters, instead of throwing 16 million people off of health care, we should understand that health care is a human right. Guarantee health care for every man, woman, and child. [Music] And again, what I want to tell you — and the media doesn’t do much on this — this is not a radical idea. Does everybody in this auditorium understand that we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people?

I live — I live in Vermont, 50 miles away from the Canadian border. They spend 50% of what we do per person on health care. Somehow they manage to provide quality care to all of their people. You get sick in Canada, end up in a hospital for a month, there is a zero bill.

The function of a rational health care system is not simply to make the drug companies and the insurance companies richer and richer. It’s to provide quality care for all. Let us fight for a Medicare for All single-payer program. [Music]

There are people in the Senate, some Republicans, who are talking about cutting Social Security, raising the retirement age, or whatever. You know, it is seniors who built this country, seniors who fought in the wars to defend this country, and in their last years you don’t cut Social Security — we expand Social Security benefits. And you do that by lifting the cap on taxable income so that billionaires start paying their fair share into the system.

And instead of throwing people off of health care or denying food to hungry kids, maybe we address the housing crisis in America and build the millions of low-income and affordable housing units that we desperately need. Maybe in a competitive global economy, instead of making it harder for kids to get a higher education, we make public colleges and universities tuition-free.

[Applause]

Young people should not be forced to go $50,000 in debt because they wanted a higher education. We need in this country — we desperately need — more doctors and nurses and mental health counselors and dentists. Do you know how much, if you’re a working-class person and you graduate medical school, do you know what your debt is likely to be? Anyone know? $500,000. Insane.

We want to encourage our young people to be doctors and nurses, not to have to go deeply in debt to do that. And yes, we understand that we can create millions of good-paying union jobs by addressing the existential threat of climate change.

And when some of my colleagues in the Congress talk about freedom — they love freedom — well, in my view freedom means that every woman in America has the right to control her own body.

Look, these are tough times. But in this moment, especially this moment in American history, despair is not an option. Giving up and hiding under the covers is not acceptable, because what we are dealing with is not just stuff that will impact our lives — what we are dealing with is what will happen to our kids and future generations.

And let us never forget: real, real change never takes place from the top on down. It is always from the bottom on up. Real change takes place when millions of ordinary people stand up and say, you know what, the status quo is not working, and they band together and they take on powerful special interests.

This is what happened way back in 1776 when people in America said, we are tired of being ruled by a despot. It happened in the 1840s when abolitionists said slavery is abominable, not acceptable. It happened in the ’20s — 1920s — and ’30s when workers said, “We are sick and tired of being exploited, we’re going to stand together and build a strong trade union movement.” It happened in the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the environmental movement, the gay movement.

[Music]

So the truth is, yes, the oligarchs are enormously powerful. They have unlimited — and underline the word unlimited — amounts of money. They have enormous power. They control our economy. They own much of the media. And they have, as I mentioned, enormous power over both major political parties.

But from the bottom of my heart, I am convinced that if we stand together, we can beat them. Now, their strategy — their strategy is what demagogues always do. You pick on a group of people who don’t have a lot of power, and you say that group of people, whether it’s Blacks or gays or Jews or gypsies, whoever it may be, undocumented people in the sky, that’s the cause of all your problems.

And we got to get divided up based on the color of our skin, or where we were born, or our sexual orientation. If we discard all of that stuff and understand, yeah, we have our differences — people in Vermont will disagree with people in Louisiana on issues occasionally, or more than occasionally — but the bottom line: we are Americans who believe in justice.

[Applause]

So let us stand together. Let us not allow them to divide us up. Let’s go forward. Let’s transform our country. Thank you all very much. Thank you.

[Applause] [Applause] [Cheers]

Text prepared by:

• Bruce R. Magee

Source

Sanders, Bernie, et al. “Fighting Oligarchy in Shreveport, LA (2PM ET Program Start).” YouTube, uploaded by Bernie Sanders, 21 June 2025, https:// www.youtube.com/ watch?v= ST0opyL05Tg. Accessed 28 Jan. 2026.

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